Unity isn't hard to customize. It's generally customized the same way that window managers in Ubuntu have been customized for the last few years, through CompizConfig Settings Manager (ccsm). For alt-tab just choose another switcher under "Window Management" -- there are 4 to choose from. To remove the menu-on-top silliness, `sudo apt-get remove appmenu-gtk indicator-applet-appmenu indicator-appmenu` And I don't understand your comment about virtual desktops. They work fine in Unity.